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Night (episode)
The USS Voyager enters a vast region of space with no stars or systems. The crew come to the aid of a species under threat as Janeway bitterly reflects on her decision that stranded them in the Delta Quadrant. (Season Premiere) Summary Teaser Flight Controller Lt. (J.G.) Thomas E. Paris, is running his "Captain Proton" holodeck simulation, with Operations Manager Ensign Harry Kim. The Doctor, the holographic Chief Medical Officer, interrupts, annoyed, as they have gone into his alloted time. He tries to end the simulation at the control panel, while Paris tries to stop him. This overloads the hologrid, sending an alarm to the command console on the bridge. First Officer Lt. Commander Chakotay is in his seat, but, very strangely, the bridge is nearly empty; no one is there except him and an officer at the conn station. He calls down to Paris and Kim about the alarm, and they assure him they are fixing the problem. Chief Astrometrician Seven of Nine, former Borg drone, enters from the turbolift. She hands him a PADD and presents the results of her astrometric scan of the region they are in; no star systems for 2,500 light years, no ships, nothing; Voyager is quite alone. Theta radiation is blocking their sensors, so they cannot see anything beyond the region. He sighs and walks forward, looking at the viewscreen. It is as blank as a washed blackboard. He wonders aloud how they will make it for two years in this place. Seven says they will adapt. She asks him if she should inform Captain Janeway. He decides to do it himself and leaves. Seven walks forward and stares at the blank viewscreen. The ship is seen to be moving at warp speed, but only because the the warp nacelles are in their active position. No streak of stars is seen; nothing is seen at all. Voyager is moving through a vacuum in the truest sense of the word; a void... Act One In the briefing room, Chakotay conducts a meeting with senior staff. He stands at the windows, which are as blank as the bridge's viewscreen. The meeting seems pointless, as according to Chief Engineer Lt. B'Elanna Torres, there is nothing new to report. The warp core is at peak efficiency, as it has been for week after week; Torres' staff is going stir-crazy. Ensign Kim reports all systems are operating normally. Lt. Commander Tuvok, the Vulcan Chief Tactical and Security Officer, reports an increase in theta radiation in the area. Chakotay considers it may be worth looking into, just to have something to do. The attention then turns to crew morale; it is suffering, due to the monotony and the oppressive pitch-black nothingness outside every window. Neelix, the Talaxian chef and captain-appointed morale officer, makes some suggestions for a temporary holodeck in Cargo Bay 2, as well as rotating crew assignments, allowing crew members to work outside of their fields; learning something new could break the monotony. Chakotay agrees, but becomes angry when Neelix asks him about the conspicuous absence of Captain Janeway. No one has seen her. Lt. Paris chimes in, saying that, according to rumor, she never leaves her quarters. He harshly rebuffs them, but then relents, excusing himself due to the strain of the situation. He ends the meeting. The officers leave, and he goes onto the bridge, sits in his seat and stares numbly at the blank viewscreen. In the middle of the night, Neelix wakes up in a panic. fearful of the utter blackness outside his window, he goes to the mess hall, where Paris and Torres are playing a game. However she takes offense at a joke Paris makes and the game ends in an argument. Neelix tries to mediate, but fails. He angrily begins to rebuke them but then begins to hyperventilate. Paris calls the sickbay. In the Sickbay, a rueful Neelix is treated by the Doctor. He is diagnosed with nihiliphobia: the fear of nothingness. The Doctor tries to cheer him by telling him of the "void" that he himself goes into when deactivated, in an attempt to show him he is not alone, but his description only makes Neelix feel worse. The Doctor assures him he will get used to it and discharges him. Lt. Commander Tuvok seems to be looking out a window at stars, but he is revealed to be in the astrometrics lab, looking at a recorded star field on the lab's huge viewscreen. Seven of Nine enters and asks him if the lab has been designated for recreational use. He explains that he uses the image to meditate, as he normally does in his own quarters, looking out his windows at the stars. Just then an alarm sounds on the main astrometrics console; massive amounts of theta radiation have been detected on long-range sensors, source unknown. Chakotay briefs Captain Janeway on the theta radiation discovery in her quarters. The lights are low. Janeway stands at the far end in silhouette, looking out a window at the nothingness. Sensing she needs cheering up, he tries to interest her in a game of Velocity. She refuses. He then plainly tells her that she should not be isolating herself; the crew needs her. She comes out of the shadows and wishes aloud for the times before when they were frequently attacked; it helped her avoid thinking about how they got to be there, stranded in the Delta Quadrant. She orders him to tell her how that happened. He responds that they made a decision to stay to prevent innocent lives from being put at risk. She corrects him, saying that the decision was hers alone. The depressing emptiness of the void has made her dwell on that decision, and she has become filled with guilt over it. She bitterly blames herself for making a short-sighted, selfish error in judgment, for which all of them are now paying. Chakotay tries to say otherwise, but she has none of it. The reason for her self-imposed isolation is now clear; she cannot lift the crew's morale; hers is the lowest of all. She retreats back into silhouette at the far end of the room, telling Chakotay to give the crew her regards if they ask for her. Chakotay leaves silently. The bridge is empty except for Ensign Kim. With absolutely nothing to do, Kim lounges in the Captain's seat, his feet up on the closed command console, playing a melancholy tune on his clarinet. Tuvok enters. Kim quickly sits up and acknowledges him. Tuvok tells him to relax and asks if there is anything to report. The answer is, of course, no. Kim offers to play his finished concerto for him; the tune he was just playing. He calls it "Echoes of the Void". With nothing else to do, Tuvok listens appreciatively. Lt. Paris has inveigled Seven of Nine to join him in his "Captain Proton" adventures, playing the role of Constance Goodheart, his "secretary". Uninterested, Seven plays her part without any enthusiasm, and then asks Paris if she can leave. Paris exhorts her to get into it; she responds with a sardonic gaze. On the bridge, Kim is still playing his concerto for Tuvok when the ship is suddenly shaken. Lights and control panels flicker. An alarm beeps as the two officers dash to their stations. Kim reports that they have fallen out of warp and are losing power. A switch to auxiliary has no effect. Lights and systems begin shutting down all over the ship; even the warp core suddenly goes dark and dead. In her quarters, Captain Janeway, sitting depressed in a chair, looks around startled as the already dim lights go out completely. Every single light that can be seen outside the now-stationary ship, from the blue glow of the warp nacelles' warp field grilles and navigational deflector, to the light illuminating the ship's registry number, goes out, leaving the ship in total darkness, invisible in the blackness of the void. Act Two Officers and crew scramble to get a handle on the situation. Wrist-borne lights come out. In the holodeck, Lt. Paris, amusingly, has difficulty figuring out how to switch on a simulated 20th century flashlight. He gets it working, and he and Seven make their way to the control panel. They find that power is off all over the ship; main and auxiliary. Independent subsystems controlling environment, life support and holodecks, however, are still working. This explains why they are still in the "Captain Proton" simulation, though now in the dark. Paris, on Seven's suggestion, reroutes power from the holodeck to the emergency relays; no effect; the hologrid remains frozen. Chakotay, walking carefully with a wrist-borne light through a corridor, hears panicked breathing. He follows the sound to find Neelix cowering in a corner, incapacitated by his nihiliphobia, given the current conditions. Chakotay gently lifts him to his feet, assuring him it is only a power loss, nothing to worry about, and they go off together. On the bridge, Kim manages to get partial sensors back from a bit of fiddling with a circuit panel. This allows him to find the cause of the power drain; a dampening field, whose origin is outside the ship, off the port bow. Tuvok orders him to display it on the viewscreen. He does, but all they can see is the void's nothingness. Tuvok gets the idea to use a photon torpedo as a flare, to 'shed some light' on the predicament. Lt. Paris and Seven, still trapped in the dark, frozen "Captain Proton" simulation, seek an alternative means of exit. Paris looks around for something to open a hatch with. Then, suddenly, his torch beam falls on a creature that was there with them, in the dark, not part of the simulation. It shrinks back, as if hurt by the light. Then it growls, charges and swats him with a glowing hand. He goes down, screaming with pain. Seven grabs his simulated "ray gun", orders the still powered holodeck computer to disengage the safety protocols, making a blast from the gun as damaging as if it were real, and shoots the creature, stunning it. In the corridors, Lt. Commander Chakotay and Neelix move carefully along. Suddenly Neelix sees something. Chakotay thinks he is imagining things, but Neelix insists. As they move forward he hears breathing. Chakotay points his light in that direction and it falls in a creature like the one that attacked Lt. Paris. It shrinks from the light and then charges them. But its charge is broken off by phaser fire from off in the darkness. Light shone in that direction shows who is responsible; Captain Janeway, animated by the danger facing her ship, has emerged from her quarters, putting her depression aside. Carrying a phaser rifle, she fires at the creature as it scurries away down the corridor. She orders the two men to follow her. On the bridge, Tuvok fires the "photon flare" he created. It illuminates three ships off the bow. In Engineering, Janeway orders a power cell be used to get emergency power back online. The Engineering staff hooks the cell up to the EPS manifold. On the bridge, Tuvok and Kim watch the ships on the viewscreen, illuminated by the lingering light of the photon torpedo flare. The hook-up is completed in Engineering and emergency power comes on. Tuvok immediately raises the deflector shields. In Engineering, the warp core starts to hum and glow with matter/antimatter reaction as it begins to function again. Janeway and Chakotay set up a temporary command console. Janeway hails the bridge and Tuvok fills her in: 3 ships surround them, 17 aliens are on board. Janeway tries to hail the ships but gets no answer. Weapons come back online. She orders Tuvok to fire a few warning shots at the ships. He does. They return fire. Seven arrives in the Sickbay with a badly burned Lt. Paris. She and the Doctor help him to a bed, as she informs the Doctor of the attack by the intruder. He sends her to bring the incapacitated creature back to the Sickbay. The alien ships continue to hammer Voyager until the shields fail. They restart their dampening field and, once again, the ship begins losing power. But then the field abruptly disappears and full power returns. In Engineering, Chakotay reads on the temporary command console that the aliens on board are beaming off. On the bridge, Ensign Kim detects another vessel approaching. It is seen coming in, firing a large volley of spatial charges, which send the three attacking ships fleeing. The new arrival hails them. Tuvok orders Kim to put it on-screen. The image of the new ship is replaced by that of a pasty-looking, balding, humanoid, alien man in a dark, smoky room, presumably the ship's bridge. He is clad in a bulky protective suit. Tuvok tries to introduce himself, but the alien interrupts, expecting compensation for the spatial charges he used to drive off the attackers. Tuvok, bemused, agrees. Satisfied, the alien amicably asks them why they are there, in the middle of nowhere. Tuvok and Kim regard him, silently. Act Three Janeway and Chakotay are in one of the ship's transporter rooms. Tuvok is also present, behind the controls. The form of the alien he spoke to materializes on the platform. But, before he becomes solid, the pattern buffer holds him as bio-filters warn that he is emitting large amounts of theta radiation. Janeway orders a force field erected around the platform to contain the radiation. Once solid, the alien cordially introduces himself as Controller Emck, Malon export vessel, 11th Gradient. Janeway warmly thanks him for his help. He replies that they should turn around and go back; there are thousands more of the ships that attacked them, further in. Janeway responds that going back is out of the question; they need to cross the region in order to get home. Emck then invites her to follow him to a spatial vortex that he uses for quick entry and exit to and from the void; it leads directly to the void's other end. Janeway again thanks him. But when she expresses curiosity as to why Emck is there, he begins to get hostile. He vaguely responds that he is on a 'transport mission', and demands the alien they have in the Sickbay as the price for leading them to the vortex. Janeway becomes suspicious at this and asks him more probing questions, pertaining to what it is he is transporting and why he wants the alien. He tersely tells her to cooperate or stay behind. Janeway has Tuvok beam him back to his ship. Suspicious, she and Chakotay go to the Sickbay to find out the story with these aliens. The sickbay is dark. The Doctor explains to the two officers that the alien is very photosensitive. Its species seems to be indigenous to the void, adapted to total darkness. It is suffering from acute theta radiation poisoning, however; it is close to death. Janeway goes to the bed and gently speaks to it. It accuses them of being in collusion with the Malon, which she denies. The Doctor asks if they are at war with the Malon. It responds that the Malon are poisoning them. The Malon do not take anything from them; they simply poison their space; why, the aliens do not know. His condition worsens, and the Doctor suggests they return him to his people; there is nothing more he can do for him. The alien provides them with coordinates where more of his people's ships are gathered. Janeway sends Chakotay to the bridge while she remains there to talk further with the alien. The bridge has returned to normal; all stations are manned. A worried Chakotay calls Tuvok into the briefing room. He is very concerned about the captain's self-imposed isolation; they face a possible crisis, but instead of coming to her place on the bridge, she sent him, continuing her isolation. He asks Tuvok for insight as to any previous instances of this behavior on any previous ship she served on before taking command of Voyager. Tuvok tells him about the . In her first year on that vessel, as a commander, she sent an away team to survey a volcanic moon. Their shuttle was damaged by a magma eruption and three of the team were severely injured. The next day she took a shuttle and returned to the moon alone to complete the survey, though she could have been killed. She was consumed with guilt over the injuries suffered by members of the away team she sent, and wanted to show that their sacrifice had not been for nothing. Chakotay becomes afraid that she will take a similar risk to get them out of the void, consumed with guilt over making the decision which stranded them in the Delta Quadrant. He asks Tuvok's support in preventing her from taking any such action, which Tuvok pledges. Voyager arrives at the alien's coordinates. A bio-scan confirms that every one of them has terminal theta radiation sickness. Before the alien beams to one of the ships, he begs Captain Janeway for help in stoping the Malon. His species has, he tells her, lived in the void for eons. Then Emck's ship came and began poisoning them. They tried to talk to him, but were ignored. They tried to stop him by force, but his ship is too powerful. They would close the vortex if they could, to prevent him from returning once he left, but they do not know how to do so. The alien transporter takes him before he can hear Janeway's answer to his pleas. Act Four The Malon ship and Voyager sit in proximity. A noxious-looking, green substance pours out from vents in the Malon ship's side. In astrometrics, Captain Janeway stands, arm folded, thunderclouds on her brow as she stares at the large viewscreen, watching this. Seven of Nine and Chakotay are at the consoles. Seven reports that the ship is releasing massive amounts of contaminated antimatter. Chakotay adds that its holds are full of it. Angrily, Janeway orders a hail to the ship. Emck responds. He assumes she has agreed to his conditions and begins telling her where to send the alien on his ship, but Janeway cuts him off and demands to know why he is dumping his poisonous antimatter waste in the aliens' space. He responds that his people produce huge amounts of these industrial wastes every day; the void is a perfect disposal site. Chakotay accusingly tells him that a species lives there. Emck sees that as unimportant. Janeway sharply disagrees. She proposes a solution. Humans have long ago learned how to purify antimatter waste so that it poses no threat. She will allow him to see the technology they use to do this, so that he and his people can duplicate it. She tells him to prepare for transport to Voyager's engine room and ends the communication. She orders Chakotay to go to engineering and show Emck the technology with Lt. Torres. Chakotay leaves and she remains with Seven, analyzing the vortex with the astrometric sensors, in case destroying it becomes their only option to protect the aliens. In engineering, Chakotay and Torres show Emck the relevant technology. They offer to help him and the Malon government to start building and using it. At first he seems interested, but then it becomes clear that his is only stringing them along. Voyager's technology, he responds, would destroy the waste export business that he works in. The void provides a perfect opportunity for him to dump the waste he transports at only half the expense that other waste exporters must contend with, increasing his profits, native aliens be damned. Torres is furious. Chakotay tries to reason with him, but he will not listen. Chakotay warns him that they will not allow him to continue. He sternly responds that Voyager would never have a chance against his ship, and storms off back to the transporter room, accompanied by security. Chakotay and Captain Janeway discuss their next move in her quarters. Chakotay wants to fight past Emck, go through the vortex, then contact the Malon homeworld, report Emck's activities and give them "clean antimatter" technology. But Janeway is not sure if the Malon government will do the right thing, if Emck is any indication. She is determined to shut the vortex to protect the native aliens. But it can only be closed at its weakest point, inside the void…and Janeway has no intention of asking the crew to again sacrifice their own way out to protect strangers. She has him assemble senior staff on the bridge. For the first time in two months, Captain Janeway steps off the turbolift onto the bridge. All her senior staff is present. She outlines her plan: they will go to the vortex, and, once there, she will stay behind in a shuttle and destroy the vortex from inside the void, after Voyager enters. They will continue on without her. But Chakotay, after his talk with Tuvok, is expecting something like this. He informed Tuvok and the other senior staff, and they all know what their response will be. One by one, they all refuse to let her sacrifice herself. She is outwardly angry at this rank insubordination, but it is evident that she is actually touched by their action. Thus she abandons her plan and asks for suggestions. They quickly come up with another idea: enter the vortex and then collapse the vortex with delayed-detonation photon torpedoes from aft. The ship will go into high warp once the collapse begins. Reinforced shielding should protect them from the shock wave. As for Emck, antimatter waste radiation has weakened his cargo hold's bulkheads; a direct shot on them should disable him. Janeway happily accepts the plan and takes her position in the Captain's seat once again, with Chakotay in the First Officer's seat next to hers. On his order the ship goes to red alert, and, Paris takes the ship toward the vortex. Act Five They arrive and, as is expected, the Malon ship is waiting for them. Emck fires a barrage of spatial charges at them, but they avoid the explosions. Janeway orders a return of fire. Phasers and photon torpedoes strike the Malon ship's shields. The explosion from a charge ruptures a nacelle, but they keep going. But as they get closer to the vortex, Emck scores a direct hit on their remaining nacelle, robbing them of their ability to go to warp speed once they pass into the vortex. Thus they will be unable to outrun the shock wave from their planned destruction of the vortex with torpedoes. Janeway decides that they will instead ride the shock wave itself out to the other side. But then, on the viewscreen, they see Emck's ship moving to block their way, in front of the vortex' entrance. Chakotay orders Tuvok to prepare to fire. But the battle is then joined. The native aliens arrive and begin firing on Emck's ship. He moves away from the vortex to combat them, but their combined firepower weakens his shields. With a satisfied sneer, Janeway orders Tuvok to target his cargo hold and "take out the garbage". Tuvok does so. A volley of photon torpedoes ruptures his bulkheads, destroying him as Voyager flies past, into the vortex. They enter and release delayed-charge torpedoes, which explode, beginning the collapse of the vortex as Voyager goes deeper into it. The shock wave hits and, according to plan, pushes them through the vortex and out the other side. But they are still some distance away from the edge of the void itself. Janeway orders a forward view on-screen. As they progress, all eyes watch the viewscreen expectantly. Suddenly, Paris says he thinks he sees a star. They continue watching. Then navigational sensors, which had all the time been silent as they had nothing to detect, begin beeping. On the viewscreen, stars slowly become visible. Voyager is seen passing beyond the nothingness of the void into regular space, awash with stars and nebulae. The crew watches with joy and relief. Janeway asks Kim what he sees. He replies with a smile that he sees a densely-packed region with thousands of star systems. Swallowing back emotion, Janeway orders full speed ahead. Voyager continues on, once again in a cosmos filled with light and life. Memorable Quotes (To Captain Proton) "There is one force in this universe that even ''you cannot defeat." (Piercing scream from Constance Goodheart in the direction of the holodeck door just as The Doctor enters) (To Goodheart) "''The same to you." : - Doctor Chaotica, Constance Goodheart and the Doctor, in Lt. Paris' Captain Proton holodeck simulatioT "Take a look around you. This is how the twentieth century saw the future. We are studying sociology." (Sarcastically) "Perhaps you can teach a course at Starfleet Academy: 'Satan's Robot: An Historical Overview.' ''" : - '''Lt. Paris' and The Doctor, arguing over holodeck time "First thing in the morning, I replicate some curtains." : - Neelix, after his panic attack in the middle of the night, looking into the blackness outside his window "Needless to say, the view from my quarters has been less than stellar lately." : - Tuvok, on the lack of stars for thousands of light years "Citizen of Earth, surrender! Do not resist!" "I am Borg." "Surenderrr..." "The robot has been neutralized. May I leave now?" : - Satan's Robot and Seven of Nine, taking part in the Captain Proton simulation, effortlessly neutralizing the Robot by disconnecting some wires "I'm telling you, I ''saw something! I may be nihiliphobic but my eyes work just fine!" : - '''Neelix', to Chakotay while moving through a darkened corridor after the ship lost power "I suggest you try Borg regeneration. It's much more efficient. A simple cortical implant will be required." "Another time, perhaps." : - Seven of Nine and Tuvok, on Tuvok's meditations "Chance is irrelevant. We will succeed." "A vote of Borg confidence. Who can argue with that?" : - Seven and The Doctor "Target their cargo hold. Time to take out the garbage." : - Captain Janeway "I made an error in judgment, Chakotay. It was ''short-sighted and it was selfish. And now all of us are paying for my mistake." : - '''Captain Janeway', to Chakotay "Anxiety? Anxiety is what I feel when I burn a pot roast. This... this is more like..." "Dizziness, nausea, unspeakable dread?" "Yes." "Nihilophobia. The fear of nothingness, or in layman's terms, the fear of... nothingness." : - Neelix and The Doctor Background Information * The wormhole in the Void brings Voyager two years closer to the Alpha Quadrant. * The crew has been in the expanse for two months, according to Chakotay (he later states specifically that they have been in the expanse for 53 days). *When the aliens begin their dampening field, all systems aboard Voyager shut down. Seven, while in the holodeck, states that the life support systems and holodecks do not shut down due to subsystems not being affected. This is more than likely due to the aliens needing life support systems to be maintained while they board Voyager. * Emck's belief that he could make more profit from continued waste dumping than from antimatter-recycling technology suggests that patent law must be poorly developed in Malon society. Apocrypha * In the String Theory trilogy, it is revealed that this area was caused by Voyager helping to seal a rift in space that opened up to Exosia, the home dimension of the Nacene. As the rift was sealed, the space that it occupied in space/time changed to accomodate thousands of years of another history, and the absence of light is due to the photonic energy in that area having been drained into the rift and unable to regenerate at this time. The String Theory series also gives an explanation for Janeway's out-of-the-norm attitude, that she had gone through a traumatic experience and would have emotional struggles for the rest of her life. * A Malon character mentions the events of this episode in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine post-finale novel Demons of Air and Darkness. Video and DVD releases *UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 5.1, . :Another sleeve design change from this volume on - like the DS9 Season 7 releases, a character grouping appears at the bottom of the cover, in this case (from left to right): Tuvok, The Doctor, Kathryn Janeway, Seven of Nine, Chakotay. *As part of the VOY Season 5 DVD collection. Links and References Main Cast *Kate Mulgrew as Kathryn Janeway *Robert Beltran as Chakotay *Roxann Dawson as B'Elanna Torres *Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris *Ethan Phillips as Neelix *Robert Picardo as The Doctor *Tim Russ as Tuvok *Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine *Garrett Wang as Harry Kim Guest Stars * Ken Magee as Emck * Steve Dennis as a Night Alien * Martin Rayner as Doctor Chaotica Uncredited Co-Stars * Kirsten Turner as Constance Goodheart * Tarik Ergin as Satan's Robot/Ayala * Christine Delgado as Susan Nicoletti References 20th century; The Adventures of Captain Proton; antimatter; bergamot tea; ''Billings'', USS; bio-filter; bioscan; Borg cube; candle; Caretaker's Array; Chaotica; clarinet; class 2 shuttlecraft; controller; cortical implant; country; Don Carlo; Derada; Earth; Echoes of the Void; electron; EPS manifold; eyesight; hanging; injector ports; isolation suit; isoton; lava; lock plate; magma; Malon; Malon export vessel; meditation; mutiny; nacelle; Night Aliens; nihilphobia; Novakovich gambit; Ocampa; painstick; photosensitive; plasma manifold; poetic justice; pot roast; power cell; Captain Proton; radio relay; radiometric converter; reclamation technology; retrofit; sailor; SIMs beacon; spatial charge; spatial vortex; spectral frequency; star; star system; theta radiation; transkinetic chamber; velocity; Void, the; warp flare; wormhole External Links *"Night" at FiveMinute.net |next= }} Category:VOY episodes de:Nacht es:Night fr:Night nl:Night